This should be a hot topic. Not. But I am into it, so I am looking for fellow enthusiasts.

Having exhausted the Nazis, I am up for some lighter fare.

So Doubleday, Chadwick, Knickerbockers, soaking runners, soft balls, it's all fascinating and relevant because today's political talking points and "facts" are blown up by historians of the future. This subject is all about documents and sources.

Perhaps when I know you better, I'll give your opinion more credit, but at this point I don't want to waste X hours on a movie I might not like. After all, like you I have important internet posting I must attend to.

Perhaps when I know you better, I'll give your opinion more credit, but at this point I don't want to waste X hours on a movie I might not like. After all, like you I have important internet posting I must attend to.

Since Base Ball and Base existed in England well before rounders, I really doubt it. There was a french game called poison ball. And trap ball and stool ball were around for hundreds of years before rounders. Just because Chadwick wanted to credit rounders doesn't make it so. Just because Spalding wanted to credit Doubleday, his fellow Theosophist, doesn't make it so. Block's book includes hundreds of examples of historical documents that cite varying ball games. The earliest game called base ball, was cited in a children's book of games and it was dated 1744. Rounders doesn't start showing up until well into the 19th century. Kids have enjoyed running and throwing and catching and hitting balls with sticks forever. Emotionally, people want a specific creation myth. In this case, it's a lot more like the drip drip drip of evolution.

Done with Brock and onto this excellent book, Lawrence Ritter's "The Glory of their Times."

It looks as though Ken Burns relied on this book in his films on baseball because I keep running into quotes that surface in the film.

Ritter went around in the late 1950s and interviewed players who were still around about the early baseball players (1890 - 1930). The book is transcriptions of those conversations, so the book has that oral tradition, folksy, slightly wandering quality you would expect from a conversation with an older person.

It reads well and is full of details and observations that have the ring of truth.

Since Base Ball and Base existed in England well before rounders, I really doubt it. There was a french game called poison ball. And trap ball and stool ball were around for hundreds of years before rounders. Just because Chadwick wanted to credit rounders doesn't make it so. Just because Spalding wanted to credit Doubleday, his fellow Theosophist, doesn't make it so. Block's book includes hundreds of examples of historical documents that cite varying ball games. The earliest game called base ball, was cited in a children's book of games and it was dated 1744. Rounders doesn't start showing up until well into the 19th century. Kids have enjoyed running and throwing and catching and hitting balls with sticks forever. Emotionally, people want a specific creation myth. In this case, it's a lot more like the drip drip drip of evolution.

See post #40.

You really should have presented this thesis earlier, rather than dripping stuff out to us a bit at a time. We're not all reading the same book you are, so you leave us with the impression you're not playing fair. I see now, in the cited post, the thesis of the book in full (so far at least) and I really think we should have STARTED the discussion with that information. Now that you've presented it, there's really nothing to argue about--unless one is a competing scholar of baseball history with a competing thesis and the evidence to support it; those are rare and probably don't post at this forum.

You really should have presented this thesis earlier, rather than dripping stuff out to us a bit at a time. We're not all reading the same book you are, so you leave us with the impression you're not playing fair. I see now, in the cited post, the thesis of the book in full (so far at least) and I really think we should have STARTED the discussion with that information. Now that you've presented it, there's really nothing to argue about--unless one is a competing scholar of baseball history with a competing thesis and the evidence to support it; those are rare and probably don't post at this forum.

I didn't have the thesis to present. Brock's book is far more comprehensive and detailed. There are are over 100 cites covering the middle ages to 1870. The first book I read focused mainly on the competing "Rounders versus Doubleday" dispute (Thorn: Baseball in the Garden of Eden). But honestly I've only read two books. Got anything better?